


Eudæmonia

by Leyenn



Series: Eudæmonia [1]
Category: His Dark Materials - Pullman, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: F/M, Fusion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:09:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Everyone had a dæmon: he didn't question it, just the way he didn't question that everyone had a soul. Didn't mean there couldn't be some differences.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Eudæmonia

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilerish for Imzadi (although you don't need to have read it, this may not make a massive amount of sense otherwise). For those unfamiliar with His Dark Materials, the salient points of the fusion are outlined [here in trinityofone's fabulous HDM primer](http://www.livejournal.com/users/trinityofone/25315.html#cutid1).

"You might find it a bit hard to get used to," Roper had said. "There're always a few who do."

Riker'd frowned. Everyone had a dæmon: he didn't question it, just the way he didn't question that everyone had a soul. Didn't mean there couldn't be some differences, or what was the galaxy for, anyway?

"They're all female."

He'd blinked, confused. "I've seen Betazoid men around."

Roper had rolled his eyes, and his little goat dæmon had given a little snort. "Their dæmons. They're all female."

"Oh." Well, that was... odd. He'd been to school with a boy whose dæmon had been male. There was nothing really wrong with it, aside from feeling a little strange to look at. The boy had been introverted, he remembered, but he'd had an odd sixth sense about some things, too. It sort of made sense, he supposed, for a planet of telepaths.

Days later standing in a chapel filled with men and women and dæmons, it was still damned weird.

  


*

  


Riker steeled himself, and Kasha leapt.

Maror's dæmon, a grey lizard-like creature, went down in a rolling ball of thick malamute fur and flashing teeth: Maror screeched his fury at the pain and swung toward Riker, throwing Deanna aside. In the corner of his eye Riker saw the copper flash of Sarashiiana darting across the mud into Deanna's arms, and then Maror was on him and he shut out everything else.

  


*

  


They lay there afterwards, in the heat of the jungle that felt almost cool to him compared with Deanna's bare skin pressed against his: she'd abandoned her examination of his chest hair and, razors not being considered emergency equipment for Starfleet Security, was running her fingertips over the three-day growth of his beard with some fascination.

"You can't tell me that's for traction, too."

He grinned down at her - or up, given where she was leaning over him, although her head was only level with his shoulder - and she smiled, tracing his lips with a finger. He nipped playfully at her skin, almost caught her: she laughed.

"Do you bite after all, Lieutenant Riker?"

He chuckled. "Only if you ask nicely."

"Does she?" He caught her gaze flickering toward Kasha, lying against the back of his legs with her head flopped against his calf. He looked back at Deanna in surprise.

"She'd never hurt you." He frowned, feeling - something, he didn't know what. "You don't like dogs?"

Deanna shook her head. "No, it's not that. Actually my father's dæmon was a dog. A Saint Bernard."

He propped himself up on an elbow to look at her. "Oh?"

Her voice was soft. "They said... when he was dying... she went mad, just for a few minutes, before she-"

He nodded. "I've seen it happen sometimes, when someone's..." _In a lot of pain._

Old hurt flashed in her eyes, but it was obviously old, and it passed. "He didn't die easily," she said, in a low voice. Sarashiiana twitched and made a little pained noise in her sleep, and her tail tightened around Deanna's ankle.

He stroked her hair back where it fell against her cheek. "I'm sorry." Suddenly he understood; he cupped her face in his hand and shook his head. "No. That wouldn't have happened. We wouldn't hurt you, I promise."

"He almost killed you."

"We've faced death before. She'd protect you with her last breath, the same way I would." He meant it completely, and he knew she felt that when she smiled.

  


*

  


"Have you ever touched someone else's dæmon?" He didn't know what made him ask, except Kasha nudging her cold nose against the back of his ankle.

All right, maybe he did know.

"Once or twice, with patients. When I've had to." She looked up at him with those dark eyes that made him want to drown. "Have you?"

He shook his head. He watched her swallow hard, as if she knew - _of course she knows_ \- what he was thinking. "Has anyone else ever..."

"No." He shook his head again, imagining it. The idea made his skin crawl with strange, forbidden desire. Of course he knew it happened, but there'd never been anyone that he'd dared... "No, never."

Kasha whined softly, then, and crawled forward on her belly until she was draped across his knees, the weight of one paw splayed on his thigh. Deanna stared at him.

"Will...?"

"Yes," he said. "She wants you to."

"I know," she said in a whisper, but he still saw how unsteady her fingers were as she reached out, hesitant - until suddenly she was touching, and he felt something warm and electric blossom inside his chest.

"Oh, Will..." Suddenly she wasn't hesitant at all, just exploring gently, reverently, in long slow strokes the same way she'd touched him: he tried not to shiver and failed, because it felt - he didn't have _words_ for how it felt to have someone else's hand on Kasha's fur, smoothing it under gentle fingers. "She's so soft... I've never felt anything like it."

"You can talk to me, if you like." Kasha's voice was quiet and dry and _content_, and Deanna's eyes widened at being addressed so directly.

"_Oh_..."

Kasha lolled her tongue in amusement: Deanna smiled, and her hand went still, and somehow that was more intense, just to have her hand _on his dæmon_ without moving, as if she never intended to move it again. "_Imzadi_," she said softly, and he knew she meant both of them.

And then Sarashiiana uncurled from her copper ball at Deanna's feet and looked up at him - at _him!_ \- with those quick, black eyes that were exactly like Deanna's: he shuddered, caught in her sharp gaze, and didn't move, didn't _breathe_, felt Kasha go stiff and tremble against him as Deanna's dæmon stalked primly up her body and stepped across onto his chest.

"Oh, god." The weight of her was four delicate, warm pawprints on his skin: her tail swished against his ribs and he clenched his teeth, afraid to breathe now in case he upset her, in case she overbalanced and moved. He _never_ wanted her to move. She was watching him with those eyes, Deanna's eyes, and he felt like even when she stopped he'd have that deep black gaze on him for the rest of his life.

"You can call me Sari," she said, _to him_, and settled herself down with her tiny, otter-like head almost under his chin.

He started breathing again, eventually, and - eventually - they slept like that, in the middle of the jungle: Deanna spooned up against his side, Sari curled on his chest like a tiny furnace, Kasha's familiar warmth draped across his legs and Deanna's arm draped along her back in turn, slender fingers buried gently in soft sable fur.

  


*

  


"I still don't get it."

Kasha tipped her head to the side the way she usually did when she was curious, or teasing him. Right now he figured it was both.

"It's goopy," she said, at last. Then, "we're very stupid, you know."

He closed his eyes. The painting still hung behind his eyelids for a moment. "I know."

"She's coming here."

He didn't ask how she knew. For a moment he wanted to leave, get out of here before she could be there, standing behind them, before he could feel her or remember -

"I'm not leaving," Kasha said firmly, and so they waited.

  


*

  


Their first night on the _Hood_, he had his first dream of her. He'd never known anything quite like her before. He'd seen a lot of alien dæmons in his career, of course, but there had been something about her, that first time he'd seen her up close.

She had short, sleek fur that faded from dark bronze along her back to a light copper over her delicate paws; long sweeping tail that was darker still, almost black. His mind had always immediately compared her to a cat, or at least some kind of feline, except for the lithe length of her body and that low, gentle head with its tiny nose, swept back tapered ears with their dark, lynx-like points, and endlessly familiar black eyes. She moved like liquid, graceful and quick: and yet when she stopped she seemed able to go utterly still, all gathered poise and elegance.

She was _beautiful_.

When he woke up, with Kasha whining against his chest, he wasn't sure which of them he missed more. And he could still feel her watching him.

  


*

  



End file.
